Thoughts from Sister Hall

Mom! :)

About decorations/transfers.... "Cambios" (transfers) are on
Wednesday. My training is for two transfers... But it really isn´t
unheard of for you to get transferred and to have another missionary
finish training you. I´m afraid to say anything is likely or unlikely,
but I´m really hoping to stay.

 My pensionista is awesome, Mom.
The other day we were talking to her about her siblings and she said
she hadn´t seen them in a while... and then she said "Eh. It doesn´t
matter. My family is my sons and the missionaries." She´s so cute.
She´s not really a touchy-feely person, and she really calls it like
she sees it... but this week she told me and Hermana Mejia that she
didn´t want us to get transferred. It was really cute. She´s been a
pensionista for the missionaries for like 18 years or so. I love her.

Please, send decorations! I can´t find anything that I want to
decorate with! Please send tinsel for the apartment! And white hot
chocolate mix! I will die, I´ll be so happy, Mom.

Hey, I bought Christmas Piano Guys this week!  Me and Hermana Mejia
both LOVE Christmas. We´re constantly
singing Christmas songs, we have what we´re going to do on Christmas
planned already, how we´re going to start decorating.... If I get
transferred and I can´t spend Christmas with my cute trainer, that
will be so hard. I struck gold with her, I really did.

This week on Wednesday me and Hermana Mejia had two conferences with
President Willard. The first was for new missionaries and their
trainers for three hours, then us and one other companionship got to
eat with President and his wife (chicken cordon bleu, what up), then
another conference for the Hermanas here in Santa Cruz. We talked a
lot about gratitude and how we need to cultivate an attitude of
gratitude. Being positive can kind of be something you have to force
until it´s a habit, but it´s a habit that will bless you SO much.

We have real running water! Hot water! It really isn´t so bad here. Just
laundry by hand is all. Today it´s rainy, which means we´re going to
have to find time during the week to do it.

My apartment has a tiny bathroom with a toilet, a tiny sink, a
curtain, and a shower faucet thingy. It´s very small, it has our room
which has our beds, or suitcases, and our dressers. There´s a patio
and then another room with our study and our kitchen. Don´t take your
microwave for granted! We live above our landlord lady, who I´m pretty
sure is rich by Bolivia standards. She runs a restaurant at night
outside. She´s so stinking nice.

We serve in just one ward. In fact, us and a pair of elders serve in
our ward. Nope. No baptisms. There are a lot of less-active members
here in our ward and so we´re working with them a lot. We´re working
hard with our area. Hopefully this month we´ll have a baptism though!

My days are as follows:
6:30 - Get up, exercise
7:00 - Shower, get ready, breakfast
8:00 - Personal study
9:00 - Comp. Study
10:00 - 12 Weeks, which is a training program with my companion
11:00 - Language study
1:00 - Lunch
2:00 - 9:00 - Teaching, proselyting.....

I don´t know how to explain how my days are exactly. I wish I could
explain better. Maybe it´ll be easier when we can Skype! I can already
feel that an hour isn´t going to be enough.